Angkor Wat – back to China for the day

Our tuk tuk driver picked us up at 10am and we agreed a price of $18 for the whole day. Not particularly cheap for a tuk tuk, but he dropped us at Bayon, waited for us to walk around each one in our own time and was always outside ready to go to the next area. We eventually got back at about 7pm. 9 hours for $18 isn’t bad!

The tourism in Cambodia is growing, fast. We noticed it particularly in Angkor Wat. Building work and restoration happening everywhere which is a bit of a shame – a lot of the restored parts are really obviously restored. Bright white or grey clean sand stone used. Parts of the place were completely rebuilt in 2007, since then the work has continued with wooden stairs added for ease of access. It’s hard to get a shot of Angkor Wat itself without some building work or scaffolding.

Nevertheless it was an amazing day out. I was particularly impressed by the walls and just the pure scale of the place. Every brick is covered in detailed carvings. A huge amount of time must have been put into it. Angkor Wat itself is amazing enough, then you’ve got miles of land dotted with the smaller buildings, shrines and lakes. We only got to see a small slice of the place and unfortunately didn’t have the time to see the jungle and mountain temples.

The amount of Chinese people at the various temples was quite amazing! As soon as we walked into Bayon about 5 bus loads of them squeezed into the place. It was like being back in China for the day with the crowds, pushing, snorting and the use of outside voices inside. The Chinese really are the masters of tourism.